A blog about rhetoric, technology, research, and where we're headed next.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Unscientific experiment by The Nation: McCain's website is the only campaign website that posts unfiltered comments

Good news or bad news for the McCain campaign?

While McCain's Internet audience lags far behind both Obama and Clinton, his official websites allow more dissent and tough feedback than the Democratic candidates, according to an unscientific comment experiment conducted by The Nation. We posted about 50 comments on the candidates' websites and YouTube accounts, ranging from bland encouragement to policy criticism to sharp complaints. Only the McCain Campaign posted every comment.

Lots of examples at the link. Does this mean that McCain's campaign is characterized by straight talk -- or that it doesn't exercised disciplined message control the way the other campaigns do? I suppose that the answer depends on your understanding of how a campaign website should work.